


dancing in tandem with celestial skies

by idleoaths



Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: Angst, Established Relationship, F/M, Fanart, Fluff, Hurt/Comfort, Post-Canon, anyways i will pepper in the fact that they all have brown eyes, can't believe sukka invented love huh, i'm not here to make you sad, it's the least that they deserve
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-20
Updated: 2020-12-20
Packaged: 2021-03-11 01:40:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,529
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28187037
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/idleoaths/pseuds/idleoaths
Summary: somonka- a poem in two parts, and the many ways that Sokka and Suki tell each other, “I love you.”
Relationships: Sokka/Suki (Avatar)
Comments: 12
Kudos: 33
Collections: MMEU Winter Solstice Exchange 2020





	dancing in tandem with celestial skies

**Author's Note:**

  * For [crashing_meteors](https://archiveofourown.org/users/crashing_meteors/gifts).



> for the lovely candy :) hope you like it and that you're doing well on this fine winter solstice evening. don't forget to look outside for the jupiter and saturn conjunction tonight. you really really really don't wanna miss it, the last time they were this close together was in 1226. if you're reading this after the fact, my condolences to you for missing an event such as that. anyways, onto the fic, please don't have high expectations. :j

**\---**

**Yesterday had cried**

**to apologize, my love.**

**Today worries not**

**when we lie beneath the same**

**blanket of constellations.**

**\---**

Sokka doesn’t like traveling in the air. He would much rather stick close to the ground, _thank you very much_. But it’s not that he doesn’t love Appa, _of course he does_ , but maybe Appa and Aang are busy and they can’t just waste time getting Sokka to Kyoshi Island. The Avatar and his animal companion have got important things to do, you know. And really, who would want to be up there for so long, with no one there to catch you if you fall? It makes Sokka’s hands get a little clammy, just thinking about it.

So it’s just something he refuses to think about.

This is how Sokka has found himself sitting at the bow of this boat, his right leg restlessly tapping against the wooden platform, eyes fixed on the water that rushes along the bottom edge. He turns towards the water and holds a hand out slightly, feeling the cool spray of the salt water against his fingers. He shakes his hand a little, pulling his arm back in after he can feel it uncomfortably soaking his gloves and arm wraps after a while. Sokka sighs, settling his chin against his crossed forearms along the rails.

He starts looking for the statue. She’s long since been repaired and now turned around towards the sea, no longer facing her people, but standing tall and greeting their visitors with a pair of fans and a stoic expression. If Sokka didn’t know any better from Suki’s stories, he still would have been intimidated by the wooden statue of one of Aang’s past lives. But now he sits, eagerly anticipating her presence in the horizon above the stretch of ocean.

He looks left. Right. Straight ahead. Left again. _There_.

Sokka attempts to stand then, at the very moment he can spot the looming statue of Avatar Kyoshi.

He hisses when he feels a sharp stinging sensation through his left leg. _Oh right._

They told him not to strain it so much. Sokka’s trying, he really _is,_ but sometimes he just forgets until the pain reminds him again. He just can’t stay in one place for so long and he just needs to leave and walk around mindlessly so he can clear all the thoughts in his head, to feel like he’s doing something useful by moving. And so remembering that he can’t do that? It doesn’t come quite as easy to him.

Now he gingerly settles back down to sit, simply watching as the statue grows closer.

The moment the boat reaches the dock, Sokka thinks that if he were able, he would have immediately taken off with a running start, jumping over the boat’s side and wading through the shallow water just to get onto the shore of the island sooner.

Instead he sighs and reaches for the crutch lying beside him, fashioned with little carved doodles. He gently runs his hands over the grooves of his best friends’ names hidden on the inner side of the wooden crutch. _Katara. Aang. Toph. Zuko._

_Suki._

He waits for the boat to come to rest beside the wooden dock. Slowly, he moves over the edge, crutch tucked under his right arm, and grips the handle as he presses down on it to put his right foot down on the dock. He pauses a little in his steps when he hears someone call for his name.

Sokka looks up, seeing a form within a small crowd beneath the Kyoshi statue waving up at him. He shifts his right shoulder up to more sturdily prop the wooden crutch under his arm, and starts trying to move so fast he’s stumbling a little in his attempt to approach her.

“Sokka!”

“Suki!”

He yells her name back with a wide smile and open arms. _Well,_ as open as one’s arms _could_ be while he tries to manage the crutch. Suki has closed most of the distance between them for him and moves forward to hug him, conscious of Sokka’s still healing leg.

Suki is out of uniform. Her hug isn’t of the really scary and pointy armor kind this time. It's warm and _real,_ and _she’s really here, isn’t she?_

Sokka only held onto her even tighter, the fabric of her patterned robe bunching up in his closed hands. Huh. Suki’s taller now too. Sokka can lay his head down on her shoulder without leaning down all that much.

“ _I missed you_ ,” he murmurs into her shoulder softly, hiding his face against the canvas of her robe.

He can feel her holding him back tighter. She doesn’t need to say it back to him to know that she missed him too. Sokka might be days away from the Southern Water Tribe, but hugging her feels like home.

\---

It’s raining. Suki could hear the thunder.

_She could see the lightning through the window._

And she hasn’t gotten much sleep all night. The earthy scent during the rainfall calmed her senses a bit, but it’s almost as if Suki can still smell the arid smoke in the air. She shakes her head, feeling a little foolish for imagining something that happened a long while ago. Something that certainly isn’t happening now. _There’s no fire. It’s just a storm. It’s just thunder._

 _It’s_ just _lightning._

It’s dark inside when Suki gets up out of her room to pace around the expanse of the dojo, trying to calm her nerves. She sighs, shaking out her slightly trembling hands. She rapidly blinks in an attempt to try and adjust to the lack of light, since Suki didn’t want to have to roll up the covers on the windows. It was still raining outside.

_There was still lightning._

But she can’t quite see what she’s doing, so Suki resigns herself to walking over to the windows and rolling the covers up a little to hopefully pick up some of the shine of the dawning horizon through the sheet of rain. Then she grabs her things, intending to do a little bit of practice to try and maintain a sense of cool-headedness, however false it might feel at this moment.

Suki sits on the ground first, fastening the guards on her forearms. She flexes her fingers, absently looking at them with the weak light coming through the open windows.

For a second, the room goes bright. _Lightning._

Suki takes a quick breath in. She counts.

_One._

_Two._

_Three._

She hears the accompanying thunder. Suki breathes out.

Now she sits there, warily watching the window in anticipation for more flashes of light as she hears the raging winds outside.

She knows exactly what she's feeling, but Suki is having trouble admitting it to herself by giving it a name. Frustrated, she clenches her firsts and hoists herself up to kick at the wall. It’s not like her to feel so weak. Blowing the hair out of her face and scrunching her nose, she instinctively looks down at her wrists for a ribbon to tie it away. None. _Great._ Suki lets out a defeated sigh.

Outside, the storm continues. She pauses, staring now at the open windows as the rain pours down, but all she can hear is her heart beating in her chest and all she can feel are her hands shaking.

“Suki?”

She whips her head around at the sound of her name. Suki’s response is blunt. “ _What do you want?_ ”

It’s the silhouette of Sokka who looks back at her near the door frame, standing there looking nonplussed. Suki looks away and covers her face behind her hands, pressing at her temples. “Sorry, Sokka,” she mutters. Can he hear her above the sound of the thunder outside? Was she loud enough against the sound of her beating heart? Suki isn’t quite sure, since Sokka remains quiet, but eventually she can hear him as he walks closer.

Suki’s hands still cover her face, calloused fingertips rubbing at her eyes. When she speaks, her voice is muffled. “Sorry, I’m just tired. I didn’t mean to… I’m not mad at you, just so you know. I-”

“Suki, that’s okay. You don’t have to apologize for anything.” Sokka is now in front of her, gently reaching up towards her. “Can I hold your hand?” He asks quietly. Suki nods. She takes her hands away from her face, eyes still closed.

Sokka takes one of her hands in his. She can feel the rough pads of his fingertips and the smooth cotton of his gloves. _Sokka doesn’t sleep with those on. He’s been up for a while, too._

“You don’t have to be sorry for feeling like that,” he says. She opens her eyes. Suki thinks that if she looks into Sokka’s brown eyes long enough, she’ll believe the words he’s just said.

But her frustration bubbles up again. She can’t even do _that_ right either. She knows it’s not rational to be so critical of herself for feeling something as normal as _fear_. Her eyes shift around the room, overly conscious of the way her hands still tremble and Suki can tell when her breathing picks up, waiting for a glimpse of lightning and its following crack of thunder. She doesn’t quite have it in her to do anything about it except close her eyes again.

She can feel Sokka holding her shoulder with his other hand, gently guiding her to kneel on the floor of the room, near the wall. She hears him kneeling down in front of her, both hands now holding hers.

“ _Breathe, Suki. You’re okay_.” Suki tries to slow it down, to take in full breaths, but it isn't quite working. She opens her eyes in faint alarm. Sokka lets go of her hands for a bit, and she sees him taking out the leather wrap from his wolf tail, gingerly brushing back her hair with his hands and tying it back.

He grasps her hands again.

_"You're okay."_

Suki keeps looking at Sokka’s eyes. It takes the rest of her effort to follow his breathing and try to settle down.

_“You’re okay.”_

After what feels like both forever and no time at all, it finally feels like she really _is_ okay.

Sokka shuffles over to sit by her side, tucking his legs out from under him and lying against the wall. Slowly, he puts an arm around her shoulder and reaches with his other hand to hold hers. She takes it. Suki absentmindedly shifts her fingers against the blue fabric of his gloves, running her thumb against the threaded seam along the side of his index finger.

His presence is firm beside her, a comforting weight that somehow doesn’t feel stifling. Suki can still hear the faint sound of the strong winds blowing and the rain still outside the open windows, but she also feels the gradual rise and fall of her chest that grows more even and slower over time. She shuts her eyes while they sit in the almost silence that they have made as she leans into Sokka’s warmth.

It’s the first time she’s felt safe all night.

Suki knows that she’s drifted off to sleep, but she doesn’t know how long they sit there. She opens her eyes to see that the windows, still slightly open, have started to let in what looks like the afternoon light. The rain has slowed to a rhythmic tapping against the roof.

When she turns her head to look at Sokka leaning on her shoulder, she sees him awake, but looking away, gazing at the other side of the room. _Why was he awake with her earlier? Was_ he _okay?_

She can tell that Sokka knows she's awake when he interrupts her thoughts with a quiet whisper. “Sometimes I draw.”

Suki shifts a little at the sound of Sokka’s voice. Her eyebrows are furrowed, confusion evident on her face at Sokka’s non sequitur. Sokka looks up from where he’s rested his head and says it again.

Suki lets out a quiet sigh and tries speaking. “Sokka, what are you talking about?” She asks softly, not wanting to further disturb the quiet peace that she’s long since comfortably settled into.

Sokka looks away. “When I’m sad. Or worried… Or, um... Or scared.” She can hear the hesitation in his voice.

 _Scared_.

“Sometimes I draw. It’s easier than... Sometimes it’s easier than talking about it with someone.”

Suki takes a few seconds to just look back at him. She understands what he’s trying to get at. But Suki doesn’t think she knows what she would do. She hasn’t let herself feel those things since… Since as long as she can remember.

“Sokka, you know I don’t draw.”

Sokka bites his lip, looking at her again. “Do you want to talk about it?”

Suki doesn’t reply.

When Sokka realizes he’s waiting for an answer that isn’t coming, he begins to move. She watches him move his arm away from her shoulders and stand; Suki can feel the faint chill of the air in the space he’s just left. He looks back at her, silently reaching a hand out. Suki takes it and doesn’t let go.

Sokka starts talking while they walk back through the hallway to the rooms, hand in hand. “I just thought you might want to do something that makes you happy, and to me it makes for the perfect distraction when I’m feeling a little antsy, you know? Drawing makes me happy, so that’s what I do. I couldn’t sleep earlier, but I also couldn’t find any paper here, so I went out to just walk around. I just happened to walk by… And I know that you-”

Sokka is still talking, but Suki doesn’t have it in her to keep listening. She tries to focus on Sokka’s voice but all that she can hear now is the rain again. Suki works on just focusing on clearing her thoughts.

Suki blinks. Sokka has let go of her hand. They’re in the room he’s been offered during his visit to Kyoshi. She focuses back on what Sokka had just said. He’s just turned around holding something in his hand. A box?

“-and so I meant to give this to you later but I think maybe this might be a better time. To cheer you up, you know? If you don’t really feel like talking. We can go to your room after, I’ve heard it’s a lot more comfortable sitting there than on the floor. Or we can go back and do a quick spar if that’s what you’d like to do. And then maybe you can get a chance to try out your new gift!”

He holds the box in front of her, smiling. “Here.”

Suki looks at Sokka. Then she glances at the box, then back at him. “What’s this?”

“For you.”

Suki makes a small nod, slowly taking it from his outstretched hands. 

The box isn’t too big. It’s wider than it is tall. Flipping the lid off and setting it under, Suki looks closely at the gift.

A pair of fans.

They looked to be handmade, seeing the flat, whittled down edges of the wooden handles. But the inner ribs looked like solid metal, cold to the touch. Attached to the pivot was a green tassel with a blue bead threaded through it. Suki reaches in the box, feeling the sleek metal when she runs her fingertips along the ends and takes one out.

She flicks the fan open with a quick twist of her wrist and raises it.

“Toph helped! With the iron. You know, because she can bend metal.” Sokka waved his hands in an imitation of bending with his gestures. “The leaf is still leather, and I know you usually use wood but I thought that maybe it would be a bit more durable if it was switched out for iron. It’s a bit heavier, I might have to work on fixing that in the future, but they should work for a bit longer than a pair of wooden fans.” 

She can see Sokka twisting his fingers in her peripheral, playing with a loose thread from the seam of his gloves. He speaks. “Um. Do you like it? Well, don’t tell me if you don’t. Or do! You can tell me if you don’t like it, that’s okay. So I can just make another pair! We can make them together, so that it’ll be exactly how you-”

Suki surprises both herself and Sokka when she cuts off his rambling with a small laugh and pulls him into a strong hug. It takes a few seconds, but Sokka starts laughing too, hugging her back and burying his face on her shoulder, in the fabric of her tunic. They stand like this for a while until Suki can hear small sniffles against her ear. She pulls back a little to see Sokka with tears threatening to escape his eyes.

She holds a hand against his cheek. “Sokka, are you okay?” She furrows her brows. “If you’re worried about whether I like them or not, don’t be. I love them. They’re beautiful. _Thank you, Sokka_.” If Sokka didn’t stop soon, Suki might start crying along with him. 

Sokka just wipes his eyes against a lifted palm, still sniffling. “Suki. _Suki_. I’m more than okay.

 _“I’m here with you_.”

**\---**

**Tomorrow forgives:**

**I am home. With you.**

**I thank you in your slumber,**

**and now we dance in tandem**

**with celestial skies.**

**\---**

Darkness lasts longer here than it does in Kyoshi at this time of the year, but Suki still knows that it’s much too early when she wakes.

She sits up slowly, eyes darting around as she blinks to adjust her eyes to the soft light of the polar morning.

After getting through her routine stretches, Suki puts on the light blue anorak and the gloves that Katara and Sokka had gifted her years ago, on her first visit to the Southern Water Tribe. Then she makes a beeline towards Sokka’s place, just checking to see if he might also be up and ready for something like an early morning spar. Brushing back the fur covering the entrance of his home, Suki calls for Sokka as she peeks inside. No answer. She walks in.

Sokka isn’t in bed, nor is he in his room at all.

Despite knowing her instinctive worries are unfounded, she still takes the time to decide if there’s anything to be concerned about. His room is as pristine as always; the packed walls were lined with animal skins and an unlit oil lamp sat beside a makeshift bookshelf made of his old wooden crutches. It was his desk that was overflowed with what Suki could only hope to imagine was going on inside his head all the time. She quickly scans the numerous papers, some filled with doodles of their friends and family, others looking like halfway translated documents from the Earth Kingdom outlined with labeled diagrams of flying contraptions and those prosthetics he’s been talking about working on with Teo. His wire framed glasses rest on top of a pile of books on his desk. The rest of his room looks nothing out of the ordinary.

Suki hums, _Sokka’s probably fine._ She thinks about checking the one place where she assumes he might be. Just before leaving, she grabs his glasses off his desk and leaves.

A few minutes later, after greeting Katara, who also happened to be awake, and letting her know she was going out to look for Sokka, Suki makes her way to the ice floe near the edge of the village. Just as she expected, she sees Sokka’s figure along the far side, head downturned and form hunched over.

Suki follows the dips of what’s left of the footsteps he’s made in the snow. She can hear it as it crunches beneath her boots.

“Sokka,” she calls him. Suki moves to sit beside him on the small ledge. He’s reading.

“Hm?” He doesn’t look away from his book he has open in his hands and much closer to his face than it should be. His eyes move quickly, squinting a little as he reads. She can hear him softly reciting the words as he scans the pages.

_“Sokka.”_

It takes another few seconds, but he finally glances up from his book to see Suki on his right, waving his pair of glasses in front of him. “You forgot something.”

Sokka blinks a few times, seemingly just realizing her presence beside him. “Oh, hi Suki.” He smiles, closing the book, but keeping a finger tucked into the place he’s stopped at. “It’s early. Why are you up?”

Suki speaks while sliding the glasses onto Sokka’s face and aligning it along the bridge of his nose. “I could be asking you the same thing. I was looking for you anyways, for a bit of a spar. But…” She peers over at the book he’s got closed between his fingers. “It looks like you’re a little bit occupied right now.” She softly elbows his upper arm, a similar mannerism it seems like she’s picked up from Toph, and says, “What’s it you’re reading?”

Sokka flips the book in his hands, showing the title. _Love Amongst the Dragons._

“Oh, well, Zuko told me I should read it,” Sokka turns the book around in his hands, sighing. “There’s a theatre adaptation he wants me to go and see with him, but he said that we should both read the book so I can get _‘the full experience. It’s one of the classics, Sokka!’_ ,” Sokka says, making air quotes and impersonating Zuko. “It’s still his favorite one, apparently.”

Suki covers her mouth, laughing at Sokka’s admittedly abysmal attempt at imitating Zuko’s voice.

Sokka leans over, conspiratorially. “Now don’t tell him I said this, but it’s actually very likely that this is the _worst thing I have ever read_. And Zuko said the books are always better than the performances… If this book is bad, then I can’t even imagine what _those_ would be like. Who even writes these stories? _Honestly,_ Gran Gran could tell a much better one without even trying. Even Dad! And he’s _terrible_ at storytelling.”

Sokka crosses his arms and looks out at the ocean in front of them, and they sit in a comfortable silence for a few seconds.

“I think I'm done with this book for today,” Sokka says, before he huffs out a large breath with puffed cheeks and elbows Suki in jest. “Bet I can beat you back home!” And there he goes, laughing as he runs back.

Suki jumps up, absolutely not one to turn down a challenge like that.

\---

When it was evident that Suki was winning with no chance of Sokka catching up, Suki slows her pace to walk alongside Sokka, both of them smiling widely and still breathless with laughter and adrenaline. Suki grabs his hand, not expecting it to be as cold as it was.

“Sokka, did you forget your gloves too? Your hands are _freezing_ ,” she says, taking her hand back and rubbing her own together to warm them up. She takes Sokka’s hand again, and while they walk together, Suki manages to take out the gloves that she had brought along with her and place them in Sokka’s palms. 

Still passing through the path they had both made earlier, Suki says, “Here. Wear them, you need it more than I do. It’s like you’d been out there for _hours._ Did that book Zuko give you take that long to read?” Sokka takes her gloves, giving a small smile in thanks. She looks out as Sokka puts them on, seeing that they’ve made it back to the village, which still remains quiet, not quite awake in the early morning.

“Well, no. I spent a little bit of time out there just… thinking. Had to leave to clear my head a little.”

Suki follows Sokka into his room. He sits down onto the chair near his desk, placing _Love Amongst the Dragons_ down onto the pile of books.

“I don’t know. I was just feeling stressed for no reason. It’s nothing, really,” Sokka continues, starting to move around the papers into little stacks.

Suki knows what he’s doing. What he _always does_. And this time she's determined to put a stop to it. “It’s _something_ if it’s bothering you. Talk to me about it. Anything that’s on your mind. I’ll listen.” She sits down at his bed as he settles further into the chair behind his desk.

Sokka turns away from his work and sighs, silent for a few minutes. Suki gives him all the time he needs.

And eventually he speaks, and Suki is there to hear him out.

\---

When Suki wakes again some hours later, she realizes she’s still in Sokka’s room, lying with her legs hanging off the edge. She remembers their conversation drifting back into Zuko’s terrible book recommendation, and Sokka had taken to reading some of the worst parts out loud.

Suki’s eyelids are still feeling heavy. She rubs her eyes and brushes her hair from her face. She sits up from the bed and looks at Sokka’s slumped form at the desk nearby, leaning around his chair. She can hear him softly snoring, and she finds herself smiling fondly.

It looks like Sokka has long since drifted to sleep, hands loosely grasping at the pages of the book and face a little squished against the table and his forearms. His wire framed glasses hung loosely off the bridge of his nose. Suki takes the book, smoothing out the pages and closing it with a paper in the place he’s stopped reading.

She gently takes the glasses off of his face, the wire arms making the sides of his hair that he’s begun to grow out now stick up. She brushes them back behind his ear with her fingers and kisses the top of his head.

She walks over to grab a fur blanket from his bed and drapes it on top of him.

“ _Good night, Sokka,_ ” she whispers.

\---

\---

Morning arrives and Sokka greets her with a soft smile and a wave. “Mornin’, Suki.”

Suki looks up from where she’s been messing with the hood of her coat.

She sees that this time around he’s remembered to wear his glasses. She smiles.

“Hi Sokka.”

“You want to spar? Dad’s making me take a break today and go outside to do _outdoor things_ ,” Sokka grimaces like it’s the most preposterous thing his father could have said. “And Katara had the _audacity_ to agree. She said ‘ _I do too much work, I should go outside more_.’ Did I not go outside to read yesterday? We even went on a hunt just a few weeks ago before you visited. I’d say that’s enough _outside_ for me. Honestly, I should be telling _Katara_ that. She’s the one that’s always holed up inside working on those documents with Dad. Anyways. Do you want to spar?”

Suki hides her laugh behind her hand again.

“Oh, I already asked you that, didn’t I?” Sokka says, slightly laughing as he scratches his head with a confused and sheepish expression at his own words.

“At the _Super Secret Sparring Space?_ ”

Sokka nods, a wide smile on his face. “At the _Super Secret Sparring Space_.”

They walk together, making their way through to the flatter and more rocky area of the tundra in the village, a large nook beneath a sizable ledge that prevents a lot of snow and ice from accumulating below. Sokka likes to call it their _Super Secret Sparring Space_ , even though essentially everyone and their flying lemur has heard about it by now, most even having hung out in this area themselves. Suki humors him, and to be honest, she would complain about the name more if she didn’t secretly think it was actually quite clever. Sokka isn’t exactly known for the way he names things, but perhaps Suki would consider this as an exceptional case.

Over time, they’ve populated their _Super Secret Sparring Space_ with things of theirs and have begun to make it look a little bit more of _their own_ : extra practice weapons lay in one corner along with little knickknacks and some first aid at Katara’s request. Sokka and Suki have even set up some insulated walls to make it a little warmer closer to the wall of the ledge above.

As they walk there, Sokka has brought along his favorite wooden practice jian resting on the side of his hip and Suki spins one of her closed wooden fans around between her hands. Slung on Sokka’s right shoulder is another one of his impulse bought “designer satchels,” that he’s insisted on numerous occasions were both _fashionable and functional, Suki._ And he isn’t _wrong_ on the functional aspect, at the very least: right now it carries their two pairs of lighter boots and wraps for their hands, knuckles, and ankles.

Suki pulls her parka over her head, shaking out her hair. She holds her arm out and calls out to Sokka to let him toss his own anorak over to her, catching it and setting them both down on the boulders nearby that they’ve fashioned into improvised tables.

Suki huffs. “It’s chilly,” she says, shaking out her arms in an attempt to slightly warm up. Without the anorak, all that she’s got on is a sleeveless tunic and fur pants wrapped at the waist and shins.

She looks over to Sokka. _He’s still wearing his glasses._

“You might want to take those off for this, Sokka,” she calls out, gesturing towards her own eyes as an indication.

He laughs. “Oh, right.”

Once they’re all set up, switching out their boots and all, they face each other a few steps away.

They make their bows first, exchanging smirks.

And they move.

It’s a dance they’ve been doing for years. Their movements are a smooth _back and forth_. She blocks his swings with a closed fan, he parries as she backhands with the handle. A straight lunge with the jian and Suki tips back on her palm and does a backflip to avoid it.

Sokka and Suki talk a lot during the in-between, filling in the points where they both try to pull off moves in obvious attempts to impress each other. All it really does is make each other laugh.

But that’s certainly not something either of them would complain about.

As the day goes on, however, they grow quieter, and they can only hear the sound of their heavy breaths as they continue moving gracefully in defense of each other’s offensive moves. They navigate with the dim lights above, a perpetual soft glow of the sky near the poles.

When Sokka is knocked down with a sweep after seeing Suki circling around him to dodge, Suki puts out a hand towards him, ready to pull him back up. He takes it.

But it isn’t long until Sokka lets go, breathing out slowly through gritted teeth, a slight hiss. Eyes closed, he grabs at his left leg. Suki worries her bottom lip, kneeling down. "Sokka, are you okay?"

She purses her lips. "Does it hurt again?” She asks. Sokka glances at her.

“Um.” Sokka sucks in a breath. “Yeah, just a little bit, I’m good,” he mutters. 

She obviously isn't so quick to believe him. “Let’s get you to the corner. Come on,” Suki says, leaning down on his right side to put an arm around his shoulders and pull him up. She huffs out a little sigh once they make it there. After checking to make sure nothing’s broken again, she grabs their coats and places them at her side. Suki stands and says, “We’ll just wait here for a bit, you can rest right now. Once you’re feeling ready I’m carrying you back, alright? And then you can go get it checked by someone who _actually_ knows their way around healing, okay?”

Sokka looks up at her. “Suki you don’t-”

“ _Sokka_. You know you'd do the same for me." She fixes him with an unwavering stare.

“Fine,” he murmurs, but she can hear the smile in his voice.

She sits beside him against the boulders and looks up at the sky. They’re sitting in a comfortable silence, until Sokka breaks it with his quiet whisper under his breath.

“Suki.”

Suki looks at him. “Is something the matter? Is it getting worse?” She asks, concerned, but she sees the fond look on his face as she addresses him.

“Nothing! Nothing. I just. _Thank you. For being here with me_ ,” Sokka says. He continues looking at her, a thoughtfully earnest smile on his face. Suki thinks that it’s a very nice feeling to find that she can return the smile back easily.

_"You know I love you, right?"_

_"I know."_

**\---**

**yesterday had cried**

**to apologize, my love.**

**today worries not**

**when we lie beneath the same**

**blanket of constellations.**

**tomorrow forgives:**

**I am home. with you.**

**I thank you in your slumber,**

**and now we dance in tandem**

**with celestial skies.**

\---

**Author's Note:**

> wowie, my first fic on ao3 ever (could you tell? hopefully not... lmao i'm not quite sure if either is a good thing or a bad one...) anyways. sokka and suki are the best duo and i really hope i did them justice. although i do love how literally nothing happened in this fic :) writing is hard. do i really have to have a plot? can we not just simply vibe? i'm giving writing a 0/10 will unfortunately probably do again, knowing me.
> 
> the poem is based on the japanese verse form, _somonka_ , that's essentially written as two love letters between two people.


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